MARTIN COUNTY — Sheriff William Snyder said his office would be willing to look into taking over the county’s LifeStar trauma helicopter if Fire Rescue can’t work out a deal with a private company.

“I would be glad to do it,” Snyder said.

The county hasn’t had its own helicopter for emergency medical services since January when the Air Methods Company ended its contract early. Fire Rescue has been depending on using St. Lucie County’s helicopter to take patients to trauma centers, but it’s not always available.

The Sheriff’s Office taking over flying trauma patients to hospitals would mean increasing the office’s budget for a helicopter, pilot and mechanic, Snyder said.

“We don’t currently do air rescue, nor would my helicopters work for air ambulance — they’re not big enough,” Snyder said.

He doesn’t know what the cost would be for his office to take on the responsibility, but he would be willing to look into what it would take for him to establish an air rescue unit if county commissioners asked him to do so.

“There’s public safety at stake,” Snyder said. “In the modern era, having air rescue is an extremely valuable public safety aspect. If the County Commission asked me to give them a flight, I would do it.”

However, the Sheriff’s Office taking it over may not be ideal.

Fire Rescue Chief Joseph Ferrara said that would be a last resort because the process for the Sheriff’s Office to become a charter operator through the Federal Aviation Administration and meet the requirements for health emergency medical services would take about a year.

It would be quicker for a private company that already is qualified to take over the LifeStar program, he said.

“It’s better for us to look to the companies that do aviation well,” Ferrara said. “That’s the business they’re in.”

Although he said it’s not uncommon for local governments to run the trauma helicopters for their respective areas, such as Palm Beach County, those organizations are much larger than Martin County.

He said it’s an economy of scale issue because there would be a significant upfront investment into infrastructure.

“There are operations that are so extensive in nature that by the time you invest in item one to do that, you’re so far in the red from a cost-effectiveness standpoint that you might as well go with a company that does this 200 times over,” Ferrara said.

Unfortunately for Fire Rescue, he said there are only about a half-dozen private companies that could run the LifeStar helicopter in Martin County.

“There are not a lot of players in the marketplace,” Ferrara said.

He’s working on a broader request for proposals from private companies than the one he put out last year to see if the county could get a better deal than the one it had with Air Methods, which ended its contract earlier than its November contract date.

County officials chose the Med-Trans Company to replace it — the only other company to respond to the county’s request for proposals.

This week, negotiations with Med-Trans fell through just before county commissioners were scheduled to vote on a contract. Ferrara said the county’s volume of emergency calls requiring flights, which averages about one per day, wasn’t high enough to be worth it for Med-Trans.

“We recognize we need helicopter service here, so we’re open to any kind of proposed models,” Ferrara said. “We need that helicopter flying because that’s the best and most expeditious way to get a patient to a trauma center.”

About Laurie K. Blandford

Laurie K. Blandford is a breaking news reporter, covering the Martin County beat. She started as a freelancer in 2008, was hired full time in 2010 and covered local government for five years until she joined the breaking news team in 2013. She is a Fort Pierce native, Florida Gator and lifelong Miami Dolphins fan.